IntSights' Blog

11 Infamous Dark Web Black Market Avatars, Groups and Users

Anonymous web browsers (like Tor and I2P) have created what has become known as the Dark Web, enabling users to access and host websites completely anonymously. Naturally, this has given rise to a large community of underground illegal black markets and forums, where users can buy or sell almost anything, including weapons, drugs, confidential data and other illegal services.

Just like today’s most popular eCommerce or review sites have power users and well-known reviewers, dark web black markets have developed quite a few famous (or perhaps infamous) power users.

Here is our list of 11 of the most infamous dark web black market avatars, groups and users.

Astrid: Creator and Moderator of various Dark Web markets. They are considered very promiscuous, having had relations with all Moderators there, and also is the CSS guru!

Avengers: A group of individuals who are well known for ordering LSD from various vendors back in the days of Silk Road 1.0. This group would reagent test it, consume it, and write reviews about the quality of the LSD products.

Backopy: The Administrator of Black Market Reloaded (BMR). BMR is the oldest Dark Web market (since the Silk Road was shut down). BMR is currently offline with plans to relaunch with a newer version.

Cirrus: A Silk Road forum moderator.

Defcon: The alias of the Silk Road 2.0 Admin. A person named Blake Benthall was arrested During Operation Onymous and is alleged to be Defcon.

Digitalink: AKA Jacob Theodore George IV, according to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Digitalink was the first vendor on Silk Road selling illegal drugs to be arrested.

Dread Pirate Roberts (Ross William Ulbricht): The pseudonym used by the creator and administrator of the original Silk Road market. It has been speculated that more than one person may have been using this pseudonym, but “Ross William Ulbricht” was identified by the FBI as being the only owner. He was an Eagle Scout and a known libertarian. The original Silk Road website went down after his arrest.

Flush (Curtis Green): An individual the FBI accused Dread Pirate Roberts of ordering to be murdered. This person is also accused of being ‘Chronicpain’ from the Silk Road Forums, and an employee of Silk Road.

Libertas: Pseudonym used by one of the original Silk Road forum administrators, and also used by one of the administrators of Silk Road 2.0. Libertas was arrested by the “Garda Siochana” (Irish police).

Lucyskyhigher: A Reddit community (moderated by sexiest biotch) that features an informative and largely humorous gathering place for all dark web markets.

Tony76: Was a trusted vendor on the original Silk Road, then ran a massive “Finalize Early (FE)” scam. The FBI accused Dread Pirate Roberts of placing a hit on the individual using this pseudonym. He scammed a large number of Silk Road users, but his true identity and the details of if he was killed or not are still unclear.

Want to learn more about Dark Web Black Markets and some of the terms above?

Itay Kozuch is the Director of Threat Research at IntSights. He is a cybersecurity expert with over a decade of experience managing cyber-security and threat research. Prior to IntSights, Itay served as a Manager and Head of Cyber Technologies at KPMG. He previously led cyber projects and served as a CISO for major companies in Europe, West Africa and Central America.

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